A few more reviews

The Brave and the Bold #5 - DC (2007)

When I saw Mark Waid at MidSouthCon a few months ago he talked about this issue. When I heard "Batman" and "Legion of Super-Heroes" in the same sentence I said something to the effect of "Woot!". Now that I've read the issue I can say that my woot-age was entirely justified. Batman fights the Legion and there's even a good story reason for it. Also, we get more from Supergirl and Hal Jordan IN SPACE!

The Order #1 - Marvel (2007)



Given the creative team behind this one I should have liked it a lot more than I did. Matt Fraction is an excellent writer who is currently kicking ass over on The Immortal Iron Fist and Barry Kitson is one of my favorite artists. However, I am tired of stories about "what superheroes would be like in the real world". Yes, I understand that heroes would be celebrities with marketing teams and agents but that's not what I read comics for. No one will be seated during the exciting Fragrance-Launch Scene! Not my bag, baby.

This isn't a bad comic. It's a well-done comic about something I don't like. In order to make this sort of thing click for me you've got to do something different with it and this one feels like I've read it a dozen times before. I have to point out that Mark Morales's inks and Dean White's colors look great on Kitson's pencils. Except for a few pages of repetitive talking heads this is one of the most visually interesting comics to come out this month.

Scroll down a bit in this post by Chris Sims for a (mostly) dissenting opinion.

World War Hulk #2 - Marvel (2007)



Speaking of things that have been done before, World War Hulk has fallen into a pattern after only two issues.

1. Hulk breaks some shit.
2. Someone with a history of calming Hulk down talks to him for a few panels.
3. That person gets smashed (and not in the spring-break way).
4. Hulk beats the hell out of another member of the Illuminati.
5. A building falls over.
6. GOTO 1

There is so much more that could be done with this premise and I realize we're early in the event so there's plenty of time to add some depth to the story. I hope it's coming. Hulk's Warbound are cool and now that they're off the ship they might get to do something neat. It looks like the Sentry is going to feature heavily in this story which is not a selling point for me but I'm going to stick with it because the scenes of X-Treme Devastation are fun to read. I knew what I was getting into with WWH. It's like going to a Michael Bay movie with superheroes in it. I'm just hoping to be pleasantly surprised a few times along the way.